Terraform IQ

Terraform Interview Questions
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Contents
Terraform Interview Questions for Freshers

1. What are the key features of Terraform?
2. What are the use cases of Terraform?
3. Is it feasible to use Terraform on Azure with callbacks? Sending a callback to a
logging system, a trigger, or other events, for example?
4. What do you mean by terraform init in the context of Terraform?
5. Why is Terraform preferred as one of the DevOps tools?
6. Mention some of the major competitors of Terraform.
7. What do you understand about Terraform Cloud?
8. Explain the destroy command in the context of Terraform.
9. What do you understand about Terraform modules?
10. What are the benefits of using modules in Terraform?
11. What are some guidelines that should be followed while using Terraform
modules?
12. Explain null resource in the context of Terraform.
13. Explain the command terraform validate in the context of Terraform.
14. Explain the command terraform apply in the context of Terraform.
15. Explain the command terraform version in the context of Terraform.
16. Mention some of the version control tools supported by Terraform.
17. What do you understand about providers in the context of Terraform?
18. Explain the workflow of the core terraform.
Terraform Interview Questions for Experienced
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Terraform Interview Questions for

Experienced (.....Continued)
19. Explain the architecture of Terraform request flow.

20. Differentiate between Terraform and Cloudformation.
21. Explain the command terraform taint in the context of Terraform.
22. Differentiate between Terraform and Ansible.
23. What do you mean by a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)? Which command do you use
in Terraform to use a VPC service?
24. Explain the command terraform fmt in the context of Terraform.
25. What do you know about Terragrunt? What are its uses?
26. Explain State File Locking in the context of Terraform.
27. What do you know about Terraform core? What are the primary responsibilities
of Terraform core?
28. When something goes wrong, how will you control and handle rollbacks in
Terraform?
29. What procedures should be taken to make a high-level object from one module
available to the other module?
30. What do you understand about remote backend in the context of Terraform?
31. How can you prevent Duplicate Resource Error in Terraform?

Let's get Started
What is Terraform
Terraform is an infrastructure as code (IaC) tool that lets you build, edit, and version
infrastructure in a secure and efficient manner. This covers both low-level and high-
level components, such as compute instances, memory, and networking, as well as
DNS records, SaaS services, and so on. Terraform is capable of managing both third-
party services and unique in-house solutions. Terraform uses configuration files to
tell it which components are needed to run a single application or a whole
datacenter. Amazon Web Services, IBM Cloud, Google Cloud, Platform, DigitalOcean,
Linode, Microso Azure, Oracle Cloud Infrastructure, OVH, VMware, vSphere,
OpenNebula, and OpenStack all use Terraform.

In this article, we will cover the most frequently asked interview questions on
Terraform. So, let's get started.
Terraform Interview Questions for Freshers

1. What are the key features of Terraform?
Following are the key features of Terraform:
Infrastructure as Code: Terraform's high-level configuration language is used to
describe your infrastructure in declarative configuration files that are human-
readable. You may now generate a blueprint that you can edit, share, and reuse.
Execution Strategies: Before making any infrastructure modifications,
Terraform develops an execution plan that describes what it will do and asks for
your agreement. Before Terraform produces, upgrades, or destroys
infrastructure, you can evaluate the changes.
Graph of Resources: Terraform develops or alters non-dependent resources
while simultaneously building a resource graph. This allows Terraform to
construct resources as quickly as possible while also providing you with more
information about your infrastructure.
Automation of Change: Terraform can automate the application of complex
changesets to your infrastructure with little to no human intervention.
Terraform identifies what happened when you update configuration files and
provides incremental execution plans that take dependencies into account.
2. What are the use cases of Terraform?

Following are the use cases of Terraform:

Setting Up a Heroku App:

Heroku is a prominent platform as a service (PaaS) for hosting web
applications. Developers build an app first, then add add-ons like a
database or an email service. The ability to elastically scale the number of
dynos or workers is one of the nicest features. Most non-trivial applications,
on the other hand, quickly require a large number of add-ons and external
services.
Terraform may be used to codify the setup required for a Heroku
application, ensuring that all essential add-ons are present, but it can also
go beyond, such as configuring DNSimple to set a CNAME or configuring
Cloudflare as the app's CDN. Best of all, Terraform can achieve all of this
without using a web interface in about 30 seconds.

Clusters of Self-Service:
A centralised operations team managing a huge and growing infrastructure
becomes extremely difficult at a given organisational level. Making "self-
serve" infrastructure, which allows product teams to manage their own
infrastructure using tooling given by the central operations team, becomes
more appealing.
Terraform configuration may be used to document knowledge about how
to construct and scale a service. You may then publish these configurations
across your business, allowing client teams to administer their services
using Terraform.
Quick Creation of Environments:
It is usual to have both a production and staging or quality assurance
environment. These environments are smaller clones of their production
counterparts, and they're used to test new apps before they're released to
the public. Maintaining an up-to-date staging environment gets
increasingly difficult as the production environment grows larger and more
complicated.
Terraform may be used to codify the production environment, which can
then be shared with staging, QA, and development. These settings can be
used to quickly create new environments in which to test and then readily
discarded. Terraform can help to reduce the challenge of sustaining parallel
environments by making it possible to create and destroy them on the fly.
Deployment of Multiple Clouds:
To boost fault tolerance, it's common to disperse infrastructure across
different clouds. When only one region or cloud provider is used, fault
tolerance is restricted by that provider's availability. When a region or an
entire provider goes down, a multi-cloud strategy provides for more gentle
recovery.
Because many existing infrastructure management solutions are cloud-
specific, implementing multi-cloud installations can be difficult. Terraform
is cloud-agnostic, allowing you to manage numerous providers and even
cross-cloud dependencies with a single configuration. This helps operators
develop large-scale multi-cloud infrastructures by simplifying management
and orchestration.
Applications with Multiple Tier Architecture:
The N-tier architecture is a relatively popular structure. A pool of web
h d b h l
3. Is it feasible to use Terraform on Azure with callbacks?

Sending a callback to a logging system, a trigger, or other
events, for example?
Yes. Azure Event Hubs can be used to accomplish this. This capability is now
accessible in the Terraform AzureRM provider. Terraform's Azure supplier provides
users with simple functionality. Microso Azure Cloud Shell includes a Terraform
occurrence that has already been setup.
4. What do you mean by terraform init in the context of

Terraform?
The terraform init command creates a working directory in which Terraform
configuration files can be found. A er creating a new Terraform configuration or
cloning an old one from version control, run this command first. It is safe to use this
command more than once. Despite the fact that successive runs may result in errors,
this command will never overwrite your current settings or state.
Syntax:
terraform init [options]
The following options can be used in conjunction with the init command :
-input=true: This option is set to true if the user input is mandatory. If no user
input is provided, an error will be thrown.
-lock=false: This option is used to disable the locking of state files during state-
related actions.
-lock-timeout=<duration>: This option is used to override the time it takes
Terraform to get a state lock. If the lock is already held by another process, the
default is 0s (zero seconds), which results in an immediate failure.
-no-color: This option disables the color codes in the command output.
-upgrade: This option can be chosen to upgrade modules and plugins
throughout the installation process.
5. Why is Terraform preferred as one of the DevOps tools?

Following are the reasons that Terraform is preferred as one of the DevOps tools :

Terraform allows you to specify infrastructure in config/code, making it simple

to rebuild, alter, and track infrastructure changes. Terraform is a high-level
infrastructure description.
While there are a few alternatives, they are all centred on a single cloud provider.
Terraform is the only powerful solution that is totally platform-neutral and
supports different services.
Terraform allows you to implement a variety of coding concepts, such as putting
your code under version control, writing automated tests, and so on.
Terraform is the best tool for infrastructure management since many other
solutions suffer from an impedance mismatch when attempting to use an API
meant for configuring management to govern an infrastructure environment.
Instead, Terraform is a perfect match for what you want to do because the API is
built around how you think about infrastructure.
Terraform has a thriving community and is open source, so it's attracting a
sizable following. Many people already use it, making it easy to discover
individuals who know how to use it, as well as plugins, extensions, and expert
assistance. Terraform is also evolving at a much faster rate as a result of this.
They have a lot of releases.
Terraform's speed and efficiency are unrivalled. Terraform's plan command, for
example, allows you to see what changes you're about to make before you do
them. Terraform and its code reuse feature makes most modifications faster
than similar tools like CloudFormation.
6. Mention some of the major competitors of Terraform.

Following are some of the major competitors of Terraform:

Azure Management Tools.

Morpheus.
CloudHealth.
Turbonomic.
CloudBolt.
Apptio Cloudability
Ansible
Kubernetes
Platform9 Managed Kubernetes.
7. What do you understand about Terraform Cloud?
Terraform Cloud is a collaboration tool for teams using Terraform. It offers easy
access to shared state and secret data, access controls for approving infrastructure
modifications, a private registry for sharing Terraform modules, full policy controls
for managing the contents of Terraform configurations, and more. Terraform Cloud is
a hosted service that can be found at https://app.terraform.io. Terraform allows
small teams to connect to version control, share variables, run Terraform in a reliable
remote environment, and securely save remote state for free. Paid tiers provide you
with the ability to add more than five people, establish teams with varying levels of
access, enforce policies before building infrastructure, and work more efficiently.
Large businesses can utilise the Business tier to scale to multiple concurrent runs,
establish infrastructure in private environments, manage user access using SSO, and
automate infrastructure end-user self-service provisioning.
8. Explain the destroy command in the context of Terraform.

The terraform destroy command is a simple way to eliminate all remote objects
maintained by a Terraform setup. While you should avoid destroying long-lived
objects in a production environment, Terraform is occasionally used to manage
temporary infrastructure for development, in which case you can use terraform
destroy to quickly clean up all of those temporary objects a er you're done.
Syntax: terraform destroy [options]
You may also execute the following command to build a speculative destroy plan to
see what the effect of destroying might be:
terraform -destroy plan
This will launch Terraform Plan in destroy mode, displaying the proposed destroy
changes but not allowing you to execute them.
9. What do you understand about Terraform modules?

A Terraform module is a single directory containing Terraform configuration files.
Even a simple arrangement with a single directory having one or more files can be
referred to as a module. The files have the extension .tf. This directory is referred to
as the root module when Terraform commands are run directly from it. Terraform
commands will only use the configuration files in one location: the current working
directory. Your configuration, on the other hand, can employ module blocks to call
modules from other directories. When Terraform comes across a module block, it
loads and processes the configuration files for that module. A module that is called
by another configuration is frequently referred to as that configuration's "child
module."
10. What are the benefits of using modules in Terraform?

Following are the benefits of using modules in Terraform :

Organization of configuration: By grouping relevant portions of your

configuration together, modules make it easier to access, understand, and
change your configuration. Hundreds or thousands of lines of configuration can
be required to establish even moderately complicated infrastructure. You can
organise your configuration into logical components by utilising modules.
Encapsulation of configuration: Another advantage of modules is that they
allow you to separate configuration into logical components. Encapsulation can
help you avoid unforeseen consequences, such as a change to one element of
your configuration causing changes to other infrastructure, and it can also help
you avoid basic mistakes like naming two resources with the same name.
Maintains consistency and ensures best practices: Modules can also help you
maintain uniformity in your configurations. Consistency not only makes
complex configurations easier to grasp, but it also ensures that best practices
are followed in all of your settings. Cloud providers, for example, offer a variety
of options for establishing object storage services like Amazon S3 or Google
Cloud Storage buckets. Many high-profile security problems have occurred as a
result of improperly secured object storage, and given the number of
sophisticated configuration options involved, it's possible to misconfigure these
services by accident.
Modules can aid in the reduction of errors: For example, you might design a
module to define how all of your organization's public website buckets would be
set, as well as a separate module for private logging buckets. In addition, if a
configuration for a particular resource type needs to be altered, using modules
allows you to do it in one place and have it applied to all scenarios where that
module is used.
Aids in reusability: Setting up the configurations from scratch and writing all of
your settings can be time-consuming and error-prone. By reusing configuration
generated by yourself, other members of your team, or other Terraform
practitioners who have published modules for you to utilise, you can save time
and avoid costly errors. You can also share modules you've produced with your
colleagues or the broader public, allowing them to profit from your efforts.

11. What are some guidelines that should be followed while

using Terraform modules?
Following are some of the guidelines that should be followed while using Terraform
modules :
To publish to the Terraform Cloud or Terraform Enterprise module registries,
you must use this convention terraform-<PROVIDER>-<NAME>.
Start thinking about modules as you write your setup. The benefits of using
modules outweigh the time it takes to utilise them properly, even for somewhat
complicated Terraform settings maintained by a single person.
To organise and encapsulate your code, use local modules. Even if you aren't
using or publishing remote modules, structuring your configuration in terms of
modules from the start will dramatically minimise the time and effort required
to maintain and update your setup as your infrastructure becomes more
complicated.
To identify useful modules, go to the Terraform Registry, which is open to the
public. By relying on the efforts of others to create common infrastructure
scenarios, you may implement your configuration more quickly and confidently.
Modules can be published and shared with your team. The majority of
infrastructure is handled by a group of individuals, and modules are a vital tool
for teams to collaborate on infrastructure creation and maintenance.
12. Explain null resource in the context of Terraform.

The null resource is a resource that lets you set up provisioners that aren't directly
linked to any current resource. Because a null resource behaves like any other
resource, you can configure provisioners, connection details, and other meta-
parameters just like any other resource. This gives you more precise control over
when provisioners execute in the dependency graph.
13. Explain the command terraform validate in the context of

Terraform.
The terraform validate command verifies the configuration files in a directory,
focusing solely on the configuration and excluding any outside services such as
remote state, provider APIs, and so on. Validate performs checks to see if a
configuration is syntactically correct and internally consistent, regardless of any
variables or current state. As a result, it's best used for general verification of reusable
modules, such as ensuring that attribute names and value types are correct. This
command can be executed automatically, for example as a post-save check in a text
editor or as a test step for a reusable module in a continuous integration system.
Syntax: terraform validate [options]
The following options are available with this command:

-json - Create output in the machine-readable JSON format, appropriate for

integration with text editors and other automated systems. Color is always
turned off.
-no-color - If supplied, the output will be colourless.
14. Explain the command terraform apply in the context of

Terraform.
The terraform apply command is used to carry out the tasks in a Terraform plan. The
simplest method to use terraform apply is to run it without any arguments, in which
case it will construct a new execution plan (as if you had run terraform plan) and then
request you to accept it before doing the activities you specified. Another approach
to use terraform apply is to supply it the filename of a saved plan file generated with
terraform plan -out=..., in which case Terraform will apply the modifications to the
plan without prompting for confirmation. This two-step process is most useful when
using Terraform in an automated environment.
Syntax:
terraform apply [options] [plan file]
15. Explain the command terraform version in the context of

Terraform.
The terraform version command shows the current Terraform version as well as any
installed plugins.
Syntax:
terraform version [options]
Unless disabled, the version will display the Terraform version, the platform it's
installed on, installed providers, and the results of upgrade and security checks with
no extra arguments.
There is one optional flag for this command:
If you specify -json, the version information is formatted as a JSON object, with no
upgrade or security information.

16. Mention some of the version control tools supported by

Terraform.
Some of the version control tools supported by Terraform are as follows:
GitHub
GitLab CE
GitLab EE
Bucket Cloud
17. What do you understand about providers in the context of

Terraform?
To interface with cloud providers, SaaS providers, and other APIs, Terraform uses
plugins called "providers." Terraform configurations must specify the providers they
need in order for Terraform to install and use them. Some providers also require
setup (such as endpoint URLs or cloud regions) before they may be used. Terraform
may manage a set of resource types and/or data sources that each provider
contributes. A provider implements each resource type; Terraform would be unable
to manage any infrastructure without them. The majority of service providers set up
a specific infrastructure platform (either cloud or self-hosted). Local utilities, such as
generating random numbers for unique resource names, can be offered by providers.
18. Explain the workflow of the core terraform.

Terraform's core workflow consists of three steps:

Write - Create infrastructure in the form of code.

Plan - Plan ahead of time to see how the changes will look before they are
implemented.
Apply - Create a repeatable infrastructure.
Terraform Interview Questions for Experienced

19. Explain the architecture of Terraform request flow.
A request in Terraform undergoes the following steps as shown in the diagram:

Following are the different components in the above architecture:

Command Line Interface (CLI):
CLI (Common Language Interface) (command package)
Aside from some early bootstrapping in the root package (not shown in the diagram),
when a user starts the terraform application, execution jumps right into one of the
command package's "command" implementations. The commands.go file in the
repository's root directory contains the mapping between user-facing command
names and their respective command package types.
The job of the command implementation for these commands is to read and parse
any command line arguments, command-line options, and environment variables
required for the given command and use them to generate a backend.operation
object. The operation is then transferred to the backend that is currently selected.
Backends:
In Terraform, a backend has a variety of responsibilities:

Carry out operations (e.g. plan, apply)

To save workspace-defined variables
To save state
The local backend retrieves the current state for the workspace specified in the
operation using a state manager (either statemgr.Filesystem if the local backend is
being used directly, or an implementation provided by whatever backend is being
wrapped), then uses the config loader to load and do initial processing/validation of
the configuration specified in the operation. It then constructs a terraform.context
object using these, as well as the other parameters specified in the procedure. The
main object actually executes Terraform operations.
Configuration Loader :
Model types in package configs represent the top-level configuration structure.
configs.Config represents an entire configuration (the root module and all of its child
modules). Although the configs package offers some low-level functionality for
creating configuration objects, the major entry point is via configload.Loader, which
is found in the sub-package configload. When a configuration is loaded by a backend,
a loader takes care of all the complexities of installing child modules (during
terraform init) and then locating those modules again. It takes the path to a root
module and loads all of the child modules in a recursive manner to create a single
configs.
State Manager:
The state manager is in charge of storing and retrieving snapshots of a workspace's
Terraform state. Each manager is an implementation of a subset of the statemgr
package's interfaces, with most practical managers implementing the entire set of
statemgr.Full's operations . The smaller interfaces are mostly for use in other
function signatures to be specific about what actions the function might perform on
the state manager; there's no reason to design a state manager that doesn't
implement all of statemgr. Full.
Graph Builder:

The terraform.Context method invokes a graph builder. A graph builder is used to

represent the essential steps for that operation and the dependence relationships
between them. Because the graph-building process differs by operation, each has its
own graph builder. A "plan" operation, for example, requires a graph created directly
from the configuration, whereas an "apply" action creates its graph from the set of
modifications stated in the plan being applied.
Graph Walk:
The graph walking method visits each vertex of the graph in a fashion that respects
the graph's "happens a er" edges. Each vertex in the graph is assessed in such a way
that the "happens a er" edges are taken into account. The graph walk method will
assess many vertices at the same time if possible.
Vertex Evaluation:
During a graph walk, the action executed for each vertex is referred to as execution.
Execution performs a series of random operations that make sense for a given vertex
type. Before the graph walk begins evaluating further vertices with "happens a er"
edges, a vertex must be complete correctly. When one or more errors occur during
evaluation, the graph walk is interrupted and the errors are returned to the user.
20. Differentiate between Terraform and Cloudformation.

The following points highlight the differences between Terraform and
Cloudformation:


User-friendliness:
Terraform encompasses numerous Cloud Service Providers such as AWS,
Azure, Google Cloud Platform, and many more, while CloudFormation is
limited to AWS services. Terraform covers the majority of AWS resources.
Based on language:
CloudFormation employs either JSON or YAML as a language.
CloudFormation is now simple to read and manage. However, AWS
developers are restricted from creating CloudFormation templates that are
more than 51MB in size. Developers must establish a layered stack for the
templates if the template exceeds this size restriction.
Terraform, on the other hand, makes use of Hashicorp's own HCL language
(Hashicorp Configuration Language). This language is also JSON
compatible.
State-management:
Because CloudFormation is an AWS managed service, it examines the
infrastructure on a regular basis to see if the provisioned infrastructure is
still in good shape. If anything changes, CloudFormation receives a
thorough response.
Terraform, on the other hand, saves the state of the infrastructure on the
provisioning machine, which can be either a virtual machine or a remote
computer. The state is saved as a JSON file, which Terraform uses as a map
to describe the resources it manages.
To summarise, Cloudformation's state is managed out-of-the-box by
CloudFormation, which prevents conflicting updates. Terraform stores the
state on a local disk, which makes it easier to synchronise the state.
Terraform states can also be saved in storage services like S3, which is
another recommended practice for state management. This must be
defined on the backend, making management easier and safer.
Cost:
The nicest aspect about both of these tools is that they are both completely
free. Both of these technologies have sizable communities that provide
plenty of help and examples. Cloudformation is completely free. The only
expense that consumers pay is for the AWS service that CloudFormation
provides. Terraform is a completely free and open-source application.
Terraform, on the other hand, includes a premium enterprise version with
more collaboration and governance features.

21. Explain the command terraform taint in the context of

Terraform.
Terraform receives notification from the terraform taint command that a specific
item has been degraded or damaged. This is represented by Terraform designating
the item as "tainted" in the Terraform state, in which case Terraform will suggest
replacing it in the next plan you write. If you want to compel the replacement of a
specific object despite the fact that no configuration modifications are required,
using the terraform apply -replace option is preferred.
Utilizing the "replace" option while creating a plan is preferable to using terraform
taint because it allows you to see the entire impact of the alteration before taking
any externally visible action. When you utilise terraform taint to achieve a similar
impact, you run the danger of someone else on your team devising a new strategy to
counter your tainted object before you've had a chance to consider the implications.
Syntax:
terraform taint [options] address
The address option specifies the location of the infected resource. The following
options are available with this command:
-allow-missing - Even if the resource is absent, the command will succeed (exit
code 0) if it is supplied. Other scenarios, such as a problem reading or writing the
state, may cause the command to return an error.
-lock=false - Turns off Terraform's default behaviour of attempting to lock the
state for the duration of the operation.
-lock-timeout=DURATION - Instructs Terraform to reattempt procuring a lock
for a period of time before issuing an error, unless locking is disabled with -
lock=false. A number followed by a time unit letter, such as "3s" for three
seconds, is the duration syntax.
22. Differentiate between Terraform and Ansible.

Ansible : Ansible is a remarkably straightforward IT automation technology.

Configuration management, application deployment, cloud provisioning, ad-hoc
task execution, network automation, and multi-node orchestration are all handled
by this so ware. Complex modifications, such as zero-downtime rolling updates with
load balancers, are simple using Ansible.
Following table lists the differences between Ansible and Terraform:

Terraform Ansible
Terraform is a tool for Ansible is a tool for managing

provisioning. configurations.
It uses a declarative
Infrastructure as Code It takes a procedural method.
methodology.
It's ideal for It is mostly used to configure

orchestrating cloud servers with the appropriate
services and building so ware and to update resources
cloud infrastructure that have previously been
from the ground up. configured.
By default, Terraform
The provisioning of bare metal
does not allow bare
servers is supported by Ansible.
metal provisioning.
In terms of packing and

It includes complete packaging
templating, it does not
and templating support.
provide better support.
It is strongly influenced It doesn't have any kind of lifecycle

by lifecycle or state management. It does not store the
management. state.
23. What do you mean by a Virtual Private Cloud (VPC)? Which

command do you use in Terraform to use a VPC service?

A Virtual Private Cloud (VPC) is a private virtual network within AWS where you can
store all of your AWS services. It will have gateways, route tables, network access
control lists (ACL), subnets, and security groups, and will be a logical data centre in
AWS. When you create a service on a public cloud, it is effectively open to the rest of
the world and can be vulnerable to internet attacks. You lock your instances down
and secure them from outside threats by putting them inside a VPC. The VPC limits
the types of traffic, IP addresses, and individuals who have access to your instances.
This stops unauthorised users from accessing your resources and protects you from
DDOS assaults. Because not all services require internet connection, they can be
safely stored within a private network. You can then only allow particular machines
to connect to the internet.
We use the command aws_vpc to use a VPC Service in Terraform.
24. Explain the command terraform fmt in the context of

Terraform.

Terraform configuration files are rewritten using the terraform fmt command in a
consistent structure and style. This command uses a subset of the Terraform
language style conventions, as well as some small readability tweaks. Other
Terraform commands that produce Terraform configuration will produce files that
follow the terraform fmt style, therefore following this style in your own files will
assure consistency. Because formatting selections are always subjective, you may
disagree with terraform fmt's choices. This command is purposely opinionated and
lacks customization options because its primary goal is to promote stylistic
consistency throughout Terraform codebases, even though the chosen style will
never be everyone's favourite.
Syntax:
terraform fmt [options] DIR
By default, fmt looks for configuration files in the current directory. If the dir option is
provided, it will instead scan the specified directory.
The following are the flags that are available:
-list=false - This option doesn't show files with discrepancies in formatting.
-write=false - This option prevents the input files from being overwritten.
(When the input is STDIN or -check, this is implied.)
-diff - Shows the differences in formatting modifications.
-check - Verifies that the input is properly formatted. If all input is properly
formatted, the exit status will be 0, else it will be non-zero.
-recursive - Process files from subdirectories as well.
25. What do you know about Terragrunt? What are its uses?
Terragrunt is a lightweight wrapper that adds extra features for maintaining DRY
configurations, dealing with many Terraform modules, and managing remote state.

Following are the use cases of Terragrunt:

To Keep Our Background Configuration DRY (Don’t Repeat Yourself): By

setting your backend configuration once in a root location and inheriting that
information in all child modules, Terragrunt helps you to keep it DRY ("Don't
Repeat Yourself").
To Keep Our Provider Configuration DRY: It might be difficult to unify provider
configurations across all of your modules, especially if you wish to alter
authentication credentials. You may use Terragrunt to refactor common
Terraform code and keep your Terraform modules DRY by using it. The provider
configurations can be defined once at a root location, just like the backend
configuration.
To Keep Our Terraform Command Line Interface arguments DRY: In the
Terraform universe, CLI flags are another typical source of copy/paste. It can be
difficult and error-prone to have to remember these -var-file options every time.
By declaring your CLI parameters as code in your terragrunt.hcl settings,
Terragrunt helps you to keep your CLI arguments DRY.
To Promote Terraform modules that are immutable and versioned across
environments: Large modules should be considered hazardous, according to
one of the most important lessons we've learnt from building hundreds of
thousands of lines of infrastructure code. That is, defining all of your
environments (dev, stage, prod, and so on) or even a huge amount of
infrastructure (servers, databases, load balancers, DNS, and so on) in a single
Terraform module is a Bad Idea. Large modules are slow, insecure, difficult to
update, code review, test, and are brittle. Terragrunt lets you define your
Terraform code once and then promote a versioned, immutable "artifact" of
that code from one environment to the next.
26. Explain State File Locking in the context of Terraform.

Terraform's state file locking method prevents conflicts between numerous users
doing the same task by blocking activities on a given state file. When one user
unlocks the lock, only the other user has access to that state. Terraform will lock your
state for any operations that potentially write state if your backend supports it. This
prevents outsiders from gaining access to the lock and corrupting your state. All
operations that have the potential to write state are automatically locked. There will
be no indication that this is happening. Terraform will not continue if state locking
fails. The -lock flag can be used to deactivate state locking for most tasks, although it
is not advised. Terraform will send a status message if gaining the lock takes longer
than planned. If your backend enables state locking, even if Terraform doesn't send a
message, it still happens.
27. What do you know about Terraform core? What are the
primary responsibilities of Terraform core?
Terraform Core is a binary created in the Go programming language that is statically
compiled. The compiled binary is the terraform command line tool (CLI), which is the
starting point for anyone who wants to use Terraform. The source code can be found
at github.com/hashicorp/terraform.
The primary responsibilities of Terraform core includes:
Reading and interpolating configuration files and modules using infrastructure
as code
Management of the state of resources
Resource Graph Construction
Execution of the plan
Communication with plugins through RPC
28. When something goes wrong, how will you control and
handle rollbacks in Terraform?

In our Version Control System, we need to recommit the previous code version to
make it the new and current one. This would start the terraform run command,
which would execute the old code. Because Terraform is more declarative, we will
make sure that everything in the code reverts to its previous state. If the state file
becomes corrupted, we would use Terraform Enterprise's State Rollback feature to
restore the previous state.
29. What procedures should be taken to make a high-level

object from one module available to the other module?
The steps to make an object from one module available to the other module at a
high level are as follows:
The first step is to define an output variable in a resource configuration. The
scope of local and to a module will not be declared until you define resource
configuration details.
Now you must specify the output variable of module A so that it can be utilised
in the setup of other modules. You should establish a fresh new and up-to-date
key name, with a value that is equal to the output variable of module A.
You must now create a file named variable.tf for module B. Create an input
variable with the exact same name as the key you defined in module B inside
this file. This variable permits the resource's dynamic setting in a module.
Replicate the process to make this variable available to other modules as well.
This is because the scope of the variable established here is limited to module B.
30. What do you understand about remote backend in the

context of Terraform?
Terraform's remote backend stores terraform state and can also conduct operations
in the terraform cloud. terraform commands such as init, plan, apply, destroy , get,
output, providers, state (sub-commands: list, mv, pull, push, rm, show), taint,
untaint, validate, and many others can be run from a remote backend. It can be used
with a single or several remote terraform cloud workspaces. You can utilise terraform
cloud's run environment to conduct remote operations like terraform plan or
terraform apply.

31. How can you prevent Duplicate Resource Error in

Terraform?
Depending on the situation and the necessity, it can be accomplished in one of three
ways.
By destroying the resource, the Terraform code will no longer manage it.
By removing resources from APIs
Importing action will also aid in resource elimination.
Useful Resources
Kubernetes
AWS
Azure
Terraform Tutorial
Terraform Download

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Terraform Interview Questions for Freshers

Terraform Interview Questions for Experienced

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Terraform Interview Questions for

19. Explain the architecture of Terraform request flow.

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Terraform Interview Questions for Freshers

2. What are the use cases of Terraform?

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Setting Up a Heroku App:

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3. Is it feasible to use Terraform on Azure with callbacks?

4. What do you mean by terraform init in the context of

5. Why is Terraform preferred as one of the DevOps tools?

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Terraform allows you to specify infrastructure in config/code, making it simple

6. Mention some of the major competitors of Terraform.

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Azure Management Tools.

7. What do you understand about Terraform Cloud?

8. Explain the destroy command in the context of Terraform.

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9. What do you understand about Terraform modules?

10. What are the benefits of using modules in Terraform?

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Organization of configuration: By grouping relevant portions of your

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11. What are some guidelines that should be followed while

12. Explain null resource in the context of Terraform.

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13. Explain the command terraform validate in the context of

The following options are available with this command:

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-json - Create output in the machine-readable JSON format, appropriate for

14. Explain the command terraform apply in the context of

15. Explain the command terraform version in the context of

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16. Mention some of the version control tools supported by

17. What do you understand about providers in the context of

18. Explain the workflow of the core terraform.

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Write - Create infrastructure in the form of code.

Terraform Interview Questions for Experienced

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Following are the diﬀerent components in the above architecture:

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Carry out operations (e.g. plan, apply)

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The terraform.Context method invokes a graph builder. A graph builder is used to

20. Diﬀerentiate between Terraform and Cloudformation.

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21. Explain the command terraform taint in the context of

22. Diﬀerentiate between Terraform and Ansible.

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Ansible : Ansible is a remarkably straightforward IT automation technology.

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Terraform is a tool for Ansible is a tool for managing

It's ideal for It is mostly used to configure

In terms of packing and